1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved sealing strip to be used for sealing the joint between a portion of the front pillar near the header, and the front door of a convertible.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a conventional sealing strip for a convertible, employed in sealing the joint between a portion of a front pillar 10 contiguous with a header 20, and a front door 40 has an extruded section 11 and a molded section 31. In FIG. 2, a section demarcated by lines between triangles, i.e., a section on the side of solid portions of the triangles, is the molded section 31, a section outside the line between the triangles, i.e., a section on the side of blank portions of the triangles, is the extruded section 11, and another section outside the line between the triangles is a weather strip 21 attached to the header 20. As shown in FIG. 2, the extruded section 11 has a longitudinal center groove 12, a hollow upper sealing part 13 on one side of the center groove 12, a hollow lower sealing part 14 on the other side of the center groove 12, and a bridge 15 interconnecting the upper sealing part 13 and the lower sealing part 14. As shown in FIG. 3, the molded section 31 to be attached to a corner is the same in external shape as the extruded section 11 and has a groove 32 and a lip L. However, the molded section 31 has only a single hollow part 33 and is not provided with any bridge. When the upper sealing portion S of the hollow part 33 of the molded section 31 of this sealing strip is deformed elastically by the front door 40, the lower lip L is bent accordingly, so that the front door sealing effect of the lip L is nullified. Although a pad 36 is inserted in a lower space of the hollow part 33 to avoid the undesirable bending of the lip L, the effect of the pad 36 is not necessarily satisfactory, and there is the possibility that the pad 36 obstruct draining the water collected in the groove 22 of the weather strip 21 attached to the header 20 through a drain hole 7 into the hollow lower sealing part 14. Therefore, the pad 36 must be formed in a particular shape, which increases the cost of the sealing strip and causes problems in the quality of the sealing strip.